Album

A Sailor's Guide to Earth

Album

A Sailor's Guide to Earth

Country’s most self-consciously artsy songwriter since Lyle Lovett, Simpson puts just nine songs on his third album -- and one is a cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom,” which has been melted into a country-soul dirge with a slightly altered chorus. Elsewhere on the album, honking Stax-style brass competes with string orchestrations and psychedelic swirls in service of an intermittently nautical theme; “Sea Stories” has Simpson sailing to sundry Far East ports and watching cobra fights. His murmuring baritone rides the tide, too, when it’s not trudging wearily through the funkabilly swamp.

About This Album

Country’s most self-consciously artsy songwriter since Lyle Lovett, Simpson puts just nine songs on his third album -- and one is a cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom,” which has been melted into a country-soul dirge with a slightly altered chorus. Elsewhere on the album, honking Stax-style brass competes with string orchestrations and psychedelic swirls in service of an intermittently nautical theme; “Sea Stories” has Simpson sailing to sundry Far East ports and watching cobra fights. His murmuring baritone rides the tide, too, when it’s not trudging wearily through the funkabilly swamp.

About This Album

Country’s most self-consciously artsy songwriter since Lyle Lovett, Simpson puts just nine songs on his third album -- and one is a cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom,” which has been melted into a country-soul dirge with a slightly altered chorus. Elsewhere on the album, honking Stax-style brass competes with string orchestrations and psychedelic swirls in service of an intermittently nautical theme; “Sea Stories” has Simpson sailing to sundry Far East ports and watching cobra fights. His murmuring baritone rides the tide, too, when it’s not trudging wearily through the funkabilly swamp.